========================================================================= INFO-ATARI16 Digest Mon, 12 Mar 90 Volume 90 : Issue 317 Today's Topics: About the Laserwriter driver for Timeworks Atari and the Everyday Pe Data Structures Toolkit Hard disk problems linear algebra package ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Mar 90 17:03 N From: Anne-Mie Vandermeeren - RUG Subject: About the Laserwriter driver for Timeworks Hi, I'm not a subscriber to the list, but I do have a question. It looks like the Apple Laserwriter driver from Timeworks is communicating with the Laserwriter. In the first place it asks for the status of the Laserwriter, and second it asks for the kind of interface the Laserwriter is initialized on (one of the option numbers of the Laserwriter). If no answer comes on that question the first time, it asks it several times, but with a timeout. If no answer came at all, it starts sending the Postscript commands with the Xon/Xoff handshaking. This is where my problem comes. I want the Atari to send the Postscript to a VAX machine and from there on print to the Laserwriter. I don't want to answer the question of the option number ( the handshaking), but I want to change the default of the printer driver in Timeworks to the DTR/DSR ( option 68). Is it possible to do that, or am I asking a hell of a question ? Please answer to me directly, since I'm not a subscriber to this list. Anne-Mie Vandermeeren (avm@bgerug51.bitnet) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 90 16:43:56 GMT From: cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve@ub.d.umn.edu (Steve Yelvington) Subject: Atari and the Everyday Pe Message-ID: [In article <90031201022042@masnet.uucp>, david.schreiber@canremote.uucp (DAVID SCHREIBER) writes ... ] > It is IMPOSSIBLE for Nintendo to be sing "monopolistic" practices > against Atari. Check your dictionary. Oh, really? It says: mo*nop*o*ly 1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a given market, or control that makes possible the fixing of prices and the virtual elimination of free competition. According to the Associated Press, Rep. Dennis Eckart of Ohio, chairman of the House small business subcommittee on antitrust, asked the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division last December to investigate Nintendo. Nintendo controls 80 percent or more of the videogames market. That in itself is not monopolistic, but: * He accused Nintendo of intimidating retailers to keep competitors off toy store shelves. * He said Nintendo has used exclusive software arrangements and physical computer-chip barriers to control the market. Nintendo installs a "lock-out chip" in each cartridge, and only licensed game cartridges including that chip can be used on Nintendo players. * He said Nintendo had created artificial shortages of some games sold by licensed software producers. * He said the result of Nintendo's marketing practices is that only games licensed or sold by Nintendo can be played on the Nintendo players, blocking independent software publishers and inflating the costs of games to consumers by an estimated 20 percent to 30 percent. I don't think anyone is close to filing any criminal charges, but similar allegations are contained in the Atari Games (Tengen) civil suit. (Atari Games is not affiliated with Atari Corp.) -- Steve Yelvington at the lake in Minnesota UUCP path: ... umn-cs.cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 90 17:38:02 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!tiger!swklassen@ tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Steven W. Klassen) Subject: Data Structures Toolkit Message-ID: <21875@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Many months ago I asked the net if anyone was interested in a toolkit (collection of C routines) I was putting together to work with various data structures. I only got a few responses but decided to go ahead with the project anyway since it would be useful to me. I have finally completed version 1.0 of my toolkit and it is ready to go to the net. If you are interested in receiving it please e-mail me. If there are enough responses I will post to the net, otherwise I will just e-mail it to those who want it. This initial version contains routines for various types of sorts as well as for working with different types of lists. It contains three libraries, described briefly below: sorts - This library includes routines for sorting an array of character pointers. (Which are, of course, pointing to the data you really want to sort.) It includes a simple linear insertion sort (inefficient but easy to understand), Hoare's quicksort (efficient for 'average' arrays but inefficient if the array is already in increasing order), and the heapsort algorithm (efficient in all cases but slightly more overhead than the quicksort. lists - This library defines a data type called list. Two implementations are included, a singly linked list and a doubly linked list. Routines are included to create lists, insert and delete stuff, move around in the list, retrieve stuff, and catenate and split lists. The lists are created in such a way that they can contain any type of data. (In fact you can put a different data type in each node if you want to.) clist - This library defines a data type called a circular list. These lists are similar to the above lists except that they go in a circle (i.e. the 'last' element will point back to the 'first' element). Both singly linked and doubly linked implementations are included. All the same routines are included as in lists with the exception of catenate and split. The toolkit is broken into three directories. doc\ contains the documentation for each of the libraries as well as copywrite restrictions (see below) and a list of error messages the toolkit may produce on occasion. include\ contains all the header files required to defined the data types. src\ contains arc'ed files containing the source code for the toolkit. The entire toolkit is available in source form only. To use it you can either #include the source files into your programs or compile them into libraries (which is what I did) in a form acceptable to your C compiler. All the code has been written in Mark Williams C but should work with any K & R C compiler with little or no modification. If you have any problems with the toolkit (errors or ideas for improvement) let me know and I may change them in a future upgrade. Copywrite information: For complete copywrite information see the copywrit file in the doc/ directory. Basically you can use my sources without restriction in any non-profit application provided that you also provide source code. If you want to use them in a for- profit application (including shareware) you need to contact me first. (I will rarely require money, usually I will just ask that you put in a credit with my name on it if I think your program is well written, or require that you remove all mention of me if I think your program sucks.) Once again, if you are interested in this toolkit, e-mail me and I will either e-mail you a copy or post to the net. Steven W. Klassen +-----------------------------+ Computer Science Major | Support the poor...buy fur! | University of Waterloo +-----------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 90 09:58:38 GMT From: mcsun!inria!loria!cartan.crin.fr!domen@uunet.uu.net (Eric Domenjoud) Subject: Hard disk problems Message-ID: <1814@loria.crin.fr> Some days ago, my hard disk got completely corrupted: I first noticed that some files were mixed on the disk and looking at the FATS and the root directory, I saw that a file was partly written in the root directory and some clusters were allocated to more than one file. It's actually the fourth time it happens but I never exactly identified the problem before. I noticed that the first data cluster on the disk corresponds to the third entry in the FATS, that's to say, is numbered 2 since the first one is numbered 0. This means that the data clusters 0 and 1 are actually never used and thus marked as free in the FATS (at least on my disk which is not an ATARI disk) and that they are actually located in the root directory, exactly where a part of my files were written. My questions are then: 1) Did anybody already experience this problem? 2) Are the data clusters 0 and 1 marked as free ($0000) on the ATARI disks? 2) Is it posible that a poorly behaved program allocates these two non existing data clusters, thinking that they are free? This problem occured first while copying a file with the Universal Item Selector and then almost systematicaly with Turbo C. My disk is a 30MB with OMTI controler bought at FSE in Kaiserslautern (W. Germany). Eric Domenjoud e-mail: domen@loria.crin.fr ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 90 17:49:10 GMT From: clyde.concordia.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!tiger!swkla ssen@uunet.uu.net (Steven W. Klassen) Subject: linear algebra package Message-ID: <21877@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Now that ver. 1.0 of my toolkit has been completed, it is time to start working on ver. 2.0. Currently I am planning on ver. 2.0 to included a library for working with various implementations of binary trees, as well as a library which I am currently just calling a linear algebra package. My initial proposal for the linear algebra package would include a number of routines for finding the roots of polynomials and for working with matrices. The matrices routines would include finding determinants, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, norms (maybe), row reduction (solving systems of equations), inversion, and multiplying matrices. This is a rather incomplete list and I am hoping that some of you out there can help add to this list. Please e-mail me and tell me what you would look for in a linear algebra package. What sort of routines (if you could provide the location of algorithms, i.e. names of textbooks, that would also be useful) would you like to see, and what sort of calling format would you like to see. I won't guarantee that I will use all your ideas or even that I will respond to your mail, but I will consider all ideas. ver. 2.0 of the toolkit (including all updates and corrections from ver. 1.0, a library for working with binary trees, and the linear algebra package) should be ready by Christmas but I can make no guarantees to that effect. (Depends on how much overtime I get at my new job.) (P.S. If anyone wants to help write any of it, or if you already have some routines which you have written but don't want to go to the trouble of supporting, feel free to e-mail me and we can probably work something out.) Steven W. Klassen +-----------------------------+ Computer Science Major | Support the poor...buy fur! | University of Waterloo +-----------------------------+ ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #317 *****************************************